Stuff

YouGov’s daily poll has topline figures of CON 34%(-1), LAB 28%(+1), LDEM 30%(+2). No significant change from yesterday’s figures, but the Lib Dems at are 30%, so the Lib Dem surge remaining healthy here. I wasn’t expecting any other polls tonight (last Sunday night YouGov was the only one), but Kay Burley on Sky earlier was saying there were other polls to come, so we shall see. I’ll update at the end of the night if there are.

Not connected to this poll, but I’ve seen various comments asking about measuring how people with postal votes are voting. Postal ballots will have started going out now in some areas, and the BPIX poll this weekend asked how people with postal votes were going to vote. That should be the last question along those lines we see till the election though, unless the pollsters feel like getting their collars felt, since from here on in they are illegal.

It is against the law to publish any poll based on people saying how they have already voted until the polling stations close on May 6th, and this includes people who have cast postal votes. In the European elections in 2004 Populus and the Times were investigated by the police over this for publishing voting figures for regions where there were all-postal ballots, which were hence effectively exit polls. No action was taken since it was not clear beforehand that this was against the law, but guidelines on how the law would apply to such things were subsequently drawn up. The result was that pollsters can include people who have already cast postal votes in their figures, but it is illegal to seperately report figures for just those who have already cast postal votes.

I think a lot of soft Lab who’d gone over to the Lib Dems are pretty shocked at Clegg’s comments yesterday, seemingly jumping into bed with the Tories. If in detail that’s not quite what he said, it’s how it’s being reported.

I’d be surprised if any poll whose fieldwork was done today doesn’t show the Lib Dems down and Lab up.

Former Lab people aren’t backing Lib Dems in order to put Cameron into Number 10. They are – were – backing Clegg to exactly ensure this doesn’t happen.

Referring back to regional swings, it seems that Lab’s major woes are in London and the North. In both these regions the swings are radically higher then the UNS. The Midlands seems the closest to UNS, whilst in Scotland there isn’t much of a swing, and in the South it is lower then UNS. Here are some numbers to explain the scale of the swings better:

Swings National
Lab-Con 4.3
Lab-Lib 7.9
Con-Lib 3.6

Swings London
Lab-Con 7.5
Lab-Lib 11.4
Con-Lib 3.9

Swings North
Lab-Con 6.8
Lab-Lib 10.3
Con-Lib 3.6

Swings ML&W
Lab-Con 5.6
Lab-Lib 8.9
Con-Lib 3.4

Swings South
Lab-Con 2.0
Lab-Lib 3.9
Con-Lib 1.9

Swings Scotland
Lab-Con -0.5
Lab-Lib 0.5
Con-Lib 1.0
Lab-SNP 1.4

Once again I caution that these numbers are from the general daily YouGov Polls, but they do cover the whole of last week. So if YouGov is weighting their polls properly (which i am confident they are) these numbers should be as close to reality as could be. We will know if their regional breakdowns are close to these figures.

Jonathan M – your argument ignores the fact that the SNP and Plaid are recognised by Ofcom as major parties in their respective countries. There are numerous precedents that demonstrate the significance of this – the two parties get their fair share of PEBs, which are apportioned on a Scottish and Welsh, rather than UK-wide, basis. Similarly when there were ‘leaders’ specials’ shown across the UK in 2001 and 2005, the SNP and Plaid received absolutely equal compensatory airtime in a similar timeslot.

Scotland – Basically similar numbers with a slightly bigger shift from Lab to SNP of 2% in the regional polls.

South – My numbers register a 19% vote share for Lab and a 33% vote share for Libs. The regional poll gives it 16% Lab and 36%Libs.

So i can see that my numbers are over estimating Lab’s vote in the South and underestimating it in London.

I will check the numbers again to see if its a human error on my part, but i have some questions.

What period does the YouGov regional numbers breakdown cover? and is it possible that some constituencies that where attributed to the South in the daily polls come up as London in the regionals? How many polls does the regional breakdown cover? (I am only covering the latest 7). What is the MOE of the regional breakdown?

Some of these questions might be stupid but am interested in seeing why i have such discrepancies. My numbers are all from YouGov (undoubtedly it could be as simple as human error ofc)
San see

Those regional swings are a bit stunning – especially in the SW and NE. Apparently all three Newcastle seats would go Lib Dem on a 13% swing!

I said at the time that Clegg would be delighted to hear UKIP saying after the last debate that you could not put a cigarette paper between the three parties on Europe. Eurosceptic Tories saying “Oh if they are all the same we might as well vote Lib Dem then”. No sign of a Devonport affect (which would be fairly local – in Yeovil they will be delighted that the Lib Dems would cut Trident and spend it on helicopters).

The overall igures are very much in line with the last YouGov poll as well, so they are not wildly out of date.

Andrew

PS There is a rumour on twitter about a ComRes poll tonight good for the Tories, by the look of it